Goodbyes are Long
by Moth Gypsy
Summary: Kurama and Yomi, and the interesting dynamic between the two. Short AU oneshot.


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MG: Hmhmmm I had a _lot_ of fun writing this. Which is unusual, cause normally even when I really want to write a piece, actually sitting down and doing it is a huge drag O: Anyways…. The place I describe in here is actually real, its near to my school. I go there sometimes and it fills me with joy.

Title: Goodbyes are Long

Rating: T

Warnings: Swearing (if it isn't filtered out D: ), gayness, nudity?

Pairing: Kurama/Yomi kindof

Description: Uuuuuuuh. So this is a highschool AU n..n' this idea just… _came_ to me, and _demanded_ to be written. So blame it. Not me (insert innocent whistling). Yeah, so. Kurama is in his youko form, only without the ears an tail. Yomi doesn't have horns and multiple sets of ears. Unless you want him to e..e I don't particularly care

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"My love waits for me in daytime" - Streamline, System of a Down

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"What is that?"

"What does it look like?"

Kurama gave a sidelong glance that clearly stated his disapproval. "You know, in some cultures it is considered incredibly offensive to videotape others."

Yomi smiled unabashedly, "Well," he said, "luckily not in this one."

The dark haired boy was holding a small camcorder up to his face, following closely behind his silver haired friend with an ever increasing grin.

Kurama turned on his heel to face the other and reached up in an attempt to bat the camera away. Yomi managed to step back in time to narrowly avoid the violent dismembering of his electronic device. He grinned even wider.

"Come on, its not doing any harm, really. Besides, I have a bet on with some of the guys in our class."

The empty school hallway which they were walking down suddenly seemed even emptier. The clocks ticked rhythmically upon the walls and the stale smell of ink and vinyl sat around every corner and in the half full trash bins.

"What?"

Yomi's smile suddenly became apprehensive and almost –but not quite- apologetic. Kurama's eyes hardened and his grip on the bag swung casually over his shoulder tightened.

"It's nothing really, just a little bet, they didn't believe me when I told them what you were like. So I thought I'd videotape you for a day, that's all."

"And what, show them the two of us fucking?"

"No, I just wanted to-"

Kurama snatched the recorder from the other in a harsh gesture, knuckles whitened. Yomi grabbed Kurama's arm with one hand and the now beeping recorder with the other.

"Let it go, your going to break it!"

Kurama did let go, and the dark haired boy fell back a step. The two gazed at each other for a moment, Kurama with fury and Yomi with an indignant pride.

"I wanted to prove that you really are like- like how I say," he looked away, "you know? Philosophical and wise and amazing about everything. Not just… some quiet kid with nothing to say to anyone but me."

The silence that followed his statement was uncomfortable, and he could not look up to meet the scrutinizing stare of the other. He could, however, feel it crawling in lazy circles over his skin and boring holes into his brain, like hungry maggots whose feast was not flesh, but thought. He squirmed and shifted from one foot to another, burning with embarrassment and resentment that the fox could make him feel so.

"Whatever."

His head jerked up. "Then you don't mind?"

Closing his eyes briefly in consent, Kurama turned on his heel again and made his way towards the main doors. "I don't care. And besides," his voice was light, but a dangerous undertone still rattled in his throat, "I have somewhere special that I wanted to show you."

The grin returned full force to the dark haired boys face, and he jogged a few paces to catch up with his friend.

"Right, then." He held the camcorder once more at eye level, "As you can see, this is Kurama. Moody and quiet, he can often be found sulking in an empty classroom or _studying_, of all the ungodly practices, in the courtyard behind the cafeteria…"

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"Where exactly are we going again?" Yomi panted.

From the top of the hill the fox turned to look down on him "You'll see." He yelled, but Yomi could hardly hear him and had to watch the fox's lips to fully catch the words.

Adjacent to the hill was a highway, and Kurama stood just at its edge, beside an underpass. He waited there for Yomi to catch up, recorder still diligently taking in everything.

"We can't talk here, we wont be able to hear anything on the screen." Yomi said loudly.

"I know."

"You know?"

The other boy ducked beneath the underpass and scaled the dark concrete. Yomi watched in fascination for a moment as it seemed he was looking at a world where the ground was tipped at a dangerously obtuse angle, as the fox skimmed quickly and gracefully over it. Then, readjusting the camera strap to his hand, he followed his silver haired friend.

The underpass was much cooler and quieter, though the eerie noise of the vehicles passing overhead could still be heard in long drawn out echoes. It made him feel like he was under water with his ears plugged, listening to some far away world of explosions and the dying screams of enormous alien monsters.

Kurama waited for him on the other side.

"That was amazing," he watched Kurama's face through the little electronic screen. It bobbed up and down with his hands as he drew in each breath.

"We'll go back there sometime, it's a wonderful place for thinking."

"Yeah," Yomi said, and added in his mind, _and sucking face._

Once they reached level ground again they waded through tall grasses and a troublesome bramble that grew at waist height and was full of tiny thorns. Kurama seemed to pass through the bushes with ease, but no matter how he tried, Yomi couldn't follow whatever path it was that he took. The thorns scratched incessantly at his arms and cloths, leaving tiny, itchy lines on his skin.

Tall trees of a breed he didn't recognize grew in thickets along their path that wasn't a path. Although the city was only hundreds of feet and an underpass behind them, they may as well have been in the badlands. The only indication of the city was the now distant noise of the traffic and the faint but lingering smell of pollution.

The fox stopped at a line of trees so thick that they permitted no glimpse into what lay beyond them. He turned with a secretive glance. "This is my favorite place."

Yomi had to drop his arms to his sides in order to squeeze between two of the large tree trunks. They grew so close together that their roots overlapped and twisted together like giant hands with tens, if not hundreds, of fingers clasped tightly together.

What he found on the other side was so breath taking that he forgot about the tape recorder and its bleak view of the ground.

The sky was a clear gray blue with only a few wisps of cloud sitting lazily about. It was a warm day, which somehow seemed to enrich the colors of everything, while simultaneously dulling them. Tall field grass swayed a parchment yellow color to compliment the sage of the leaves that framed the sky. Tree roots encircled them in a protective manner, rearing up in spots and creating little dark hollows.

In the center was a loose circle of the tallest and brightest red poppies the boy had ever seen. They grew so thickly and abruptly that it looked as though someone had acidently painted them there, mistaking the summery landscape for some other painting, in some other far off land. Their stalks and stems were thick and grayish, further enhancing the radiance of the blooms.

"This is amazing…" He startled slightly as the recorder loosed in his grip. He pulled it back up to his face and took in the whole scene again.

"Be careful when you walk through these flowers. If you crush one, you'll kill a fairy."

Yomi looked at the other for a moment, intending to say something, but nothing came to mind. He wanted to tell the fox not to say such gay things, but then the fox was always saying things like that. And his tone was so serious that Yomi always thought to take him seriously, if only for a moment. So instead he continued taking in he scene.

Kurama lay down within the middle of the flowers and seemed to disappear. The dark haired boy followed him quietly and sat with his legs crossed beside the fox.

He made a lovely picture, with long mercurial hair spread haphazardly through the grass and leaves, pale skin reflecting the sunlight with an opiate glow. He glanced up through thick gray lashes as his companion, an unreadable expression on his face.

"Why don't you tell me what you're thinking, fox," Yomi said quietly. He suddenly seemed out of breath.

"They say that fairies live in these flowers. Because the petals are shaped like a little bowl. _Papaver Rhoeas, _is the latin name. They symbolize death… and sleep." He smiled fondly at the nearest flower to himself and cradled it lightly within his grasp. "Because the battlefields run red with blood, the soil is upturned and all of the plants uprooted and disturbed, die. Only the poppy still grows, because of its hardy nature, and so the corpses rot among red fields, the flowers that feed of human blood."

"Pleasant."

"Yes. Sleep, because of their milk which is highly potent, mothers used to add it to tinctures to cure insomnia or hush a crying baby. In myth, men would walk among fields of white poppies and fall pray to sleep, never to wake, with dreams of fairies crawling across their skin."

Yomi smiled wryly, "Do you think, then, that someone died here?"

"Yes."

The fox cast a sidelong glance at the dark haired boy, but didn't seem to see him. His eyes had a faraway look, the look he oft wore when deep in thought.

" For surely someone must have. Maybe a valiant knight, maybe a lost child. Maybe an animal or loving belief. I don't think that there is a single place in the entire world where everything has not happened at least once. If you take the time to look around and really _see _things as they truly are… they can tell you the whole story of how they came to be."

Silence wrapped its cold fingers around them again. Yomi felt somewhat foolish for still holding the recorder in his hands, but then, he always felt somewhat foolish when Kurama said such things. Foolish and humble, he gazed at the lovely being beside him who seemed to have the answers to the universe. He wanted to ask something astounding. Once more his mind seemed blank.

A pair of tiny brown sparrows fluttered in the branches above them, creating a pleasant and steady chatter. They flew to another tree, cocked their little heads, chattered some more, and then flew away.

He waited for the complete silence that never came.

Kurama sat up suddenly, eyes bright with mischief and mouth cracked in a horribly troublesome grin.

"What?" Yomi asked.

Instead of answering the fox climbed to his feet, grabbing the dark haired boys hand as he did so, and pulling the both of them up.

"Wha-"

"Come."

Kurama maneuvered them out of the clearing and then started to run, still dragging Yomi behind him. The other stumbled and tripped as he tried to keep up.

Once they had made it a good ways from the clearing the fox let the dark haired boy go in favor of running on ahead. He climbed another small hill and disappeared on the other side. Yomi reached the top just in time to see his companion diving head first into a swampy little lake.

He stood for a moment catching his breath and scanning the landscape until the fox resurfaced with a splash and a sigh. His clothes lay discarded on the pebble shore.

"I'm still video taping this," he shouted.

"I know." Kurama shouted back.

Yomi watched the fox for a few more moments before climbing to sit on a large sun warmed rock at the edge of the lake.

He sat with his legs crossed and the camcorder lazily following the other boys movement.

"You look like a mermaid."

"Thank you."

"That's not exactly a compliment."

"In traditional Grecian mythology, mermaids are genderless, neither male or female. They are incredibly beautiful, nonetheless, and spend their time seducing sailors and eating their hearts.

"You have a way of making everything incredibly creepy."

"Yes. Why don't you come in?"

"This camera isn't waterproof, otherwise I would."

"Yes it is."

Yomi looked incredulously at the fox before turning his attention to the recorder. He spent the better part of a minute thoroughly inspecting the device before stating in a deadpan voice, "No it's not."

Kurama sank until the water was just below his eyes. He appeared to be thinking about something intently and his stare unnerved Yomi. Then, he sank below the surface completely.

Yomi blinked. He blinked again. He scanned he waters, trying to determine where the fox would resurface, a task made impossible by the thick amounts of seaweed and algae clogging the small pond. A minute passed.

Then two.

"Kurama?"

There was no response, not the far off howls of speeding cars or the chirping of overly cheerful birds. The last ripple left the waters surface, depicting the sky in a perfectly serene picture.

"Shit, Kurama?" Yomi's voice cracked on the fox's name and he cursed under his breath.

"This isn't funny!" Yomi yelled before dropping the camera unceremoniously onto the rock and diving head first into the water.

As soon as he was completely submerged, a head of dark gray hair parted the water. Kurama climbed onto the bank, rung out his hair, looked around himself, and then climbed up onto the rock with a wicked smirk.

He sat as he inspected the camera. Blinking and scratched on one corner, but otherwise unharmed, he surmised. He made sure it was recording before pointing to the area of water where large amounts of bubbles were coming up.

Yomi surfaced, gasping and flailing, desperately trying to stay afloat with all of his clothes waterlogged. His eyes searched the waters surface frantically until he notice the soft, deep laughter of his friend. He gasped and turned to face the rock where the mischievous fox sat recording him.

"You're all wet." The fox's low voice was childlike and sing-song, giving it an incredibley demented edge.

"You-" here he choked and spit out more water and some rubbery bit of green plant, "You _fucktard._ I'm gunna fucking kill you!"

The fox laughed again, in that same eerie voice. "How do you feel?"

"_Fuck._" Yomi started to swim towards the shore, but turned at the last moment instead to hurl a long strand of slimy green algae at the other. He sent it on its way with as much water as possible.

Kurama stood and appeared to be trying to avoid the continuous onslaught, but really he was just making himself an easier target.

Yomi's hands landed on some soggy branches that were floating together in a clump and he hurled those as well. Once he had thoroughly exhausted himself he waded to the shore and began stripping off his sodden clothes.

Infuriated, he glared at the other, but his glare soon turned to apprehensive horror as he realized that Kurama was still holding the tape recorder. "Oh shit."

Kurama sat down once more and leaned back as far as he could. He held the recorder at arms length, as though he were looking at the sky through it. The sky did not show, however. The little screen was black. No beep of protest broke from the dripping device.

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End file.
